#andasks

[andavs]

'#is eddie going to acknowledge that both his wife and son left and he had to uproot his entire life to follow them?'

Feels unlikely doesn't it?

I think that's been part of this plots problem. The actually interesting conversations that were set up by the dodgy initial premise aren't being had on screen or being said out loud or straight up being avoided.

The approach to this plot has been a bit like getting a parking ticket and rather than taking the medicine and paying it straight away they've left it and now the fine has got bigger. And rather than paying that new fine they want to get away with paying as little as possible. Its not going to work.

Yeah, that really is the problem. 

The fandom spent the entire summer hiatus puzzling out a million ways this batshit Vertigo thing could be worth it and make sense and have an emotional payoff that would be beneficial for Eddie and Chris in the end, and then the show actively avoided all of those options. And they were apparently already pulling back from the Shannon aspects before the finale even aired since they cut the one scene where Eddie and Chris actually talk about her, so I’m lost as to what this whole storyline that started with a Shannon doppelganger is supposed to accomplish.

Anything Eddie said to KimShannon hasn’t been mentioned, so it wasn’t about something buried finally surfacing for Eddie to deal with while Chris was gone

They haven’t mentioned Shannon once, so it doesn’t seem to be about grief or how her leaving affected them

Kim got one single mention to a priest that was almost purely for comedic effect, so it’s not about Kim

They haven’t acknowledged what made Chris need to leave the state or why he iced out his dad for months, so I doubt we’ll get much more about Eddie and Chris’ relationship

Eddie’s parents are the villains? But they also weren’t really the point of any of it

I think we’ve already gotten all we’re going to get about Eddie’s own childhood, so it’s not about him going back to where it started and confronting his upbringing

At this point, they let it fizzle out so much that it feels like the entire Texas thing was more about Buck spiraling about Eddie than it was about Eddie or Chris

It's just a weird fucking thing that happened for no reason, and instead of committing to their mistake and seeing it through, they shoved it under the rug and said Eddie needed to learn how to be a father. Again. Even though he was doing just fine until this happened.

[palavenmoons]

Slowly getting back to work

Thank you commissioners for the patience as I work endurance back.

Today and yesterday’s warm up is updating some designs. Still in WIP stage but its going somewhere i guess.  Just testing / updating as campaign timejumps are a thing. Fluffs grow so fast.

On other asks: this one is for you guys:

- is anyone interested in getting to know what our campaign is about, storylines?

- or oc sidesite to track characters stories or something

- or add nsfw sideblog since, I do have nsfw stuff...

I know I promised comics after “Ajar” yet sometimes I think I jump on things more ambitious than I can handle... because I get stuck on how to things. Ah, well. Im trash, what can I do about it :’D

Anyway! I hope you guys are alright! And will try to communicate a tad more.

Cheers for reading this!

[andavs]

Your data and presentation is incredibly biased. You're skewing things to affirm your dislike of the show. The summaries about Eddie's and Buck's arcs this season alone tell me all I need to know, really. I can't exactly trust leaving it up to you to decide what counts as emotional payoff for a character in an episode based on that alone. But people will gobble it up because they can't discern bias in their criticism.

I mean, yeah, I said in my post that it was based on my opinion, and you don’t have to trust my opinion because you’ve presumably seen the show too. You're welcome to make your own graph of the season, but what did I miss of Buck and Eddie's current arcs?

In the premiere, Buck was feeling left out and explicitly said that to baby Nash. Then he was working and checking in with Harry during the space arc. He had an episode dealing with his grief for Bobby/the squatter, then an episode dating Jade and Zane. The other episodes for him have been more about guiding Harry.

So his entire arc is mentoring Harry? That doesn't help the season feel more balanced because it's still focused on Harry, not Buck. In those mentoring episodes, Buck’s only talking about Harry (and in Fighting Back he was also worried about Hen) so we don't get insight into how taking this on is affecting him. In s3, Buck filed the lawsuit and we got a lot of insight into his side of things, but we also got Bobby talking to Athena about it so we knew how he felt. We haven’t gotten that for Buck this season in regards to mentoring Harry.

And since we’re looking at s3, I think it's fair to say that if this storyline was happening then, Buck would either be a partner in the arc and getting his own focus, or he'd also have shorter, multi-episode arcs of his own happening at the same time, even if it’s something as simple as joining a book club because there’s one in his new neighborhood.

They could very well be setting up an arc for him in 9c where he realizes he was too focused on Harry and threw himself into mentoring him because he’s still grieving. It made him feel closer to Bobby, it’s what Bobby would’ve wanted, etc. But we've spent several seasons saying “this will all be so good if they bring this back for emotional payoff” and then over and over again, they don't do that. So I’m having trouble giving them the benefit of the doubt here.

For Eddie, he was support to Chimney in The Sky is Falling, and I'll own up to forgetting that one in the graph, but otherwise the common theme for his episodes so far is occasional references to him finding love. Nothing else he’s done has been referenced again. The call with the vet was an emotional moment, but it was a fleeting connection that didn’t have any impact on Eddie outside of that scene. He was very affected by Abigail during the initial call, specifically due to his complicated relationship with religion, but this time anger was their connecting point. His grandmother died, who he was extremely close to, and they didn’t even mention that in the following episode.

Back in 3a, Athena got suspended in Athena Begins, and then the next episode she's still suspended and cooking at the firehouse because she’s bored and trying to keep busy. That little check-in starts at 10:04 and ends at 10:55*, and it’s a cute little moment with Bobby while she cooks before the whole team sits down to eat together. It would’ve taken less than a minute of a conversation with someone else to acknowledge Eddie just went through something big and is processing it.

And again, no shorter, multi-episode arcs. He has nothing going on when he isn’t the focus of one of his one-off episodes. 

We’ll see how this Abigail thing goes, but it’s closely followed by a firefighter auction and Buck and Eddie going to Nashville. Will it have a lasting impact on Eddie? Is it just to set up a new love interest? Will it ever be mentioned again?

*My copy of the episode is old and still has the Fox bumpers so if you check my work, your timing will probably be different.

[andavs]

your tags on that ask...he LITERALLY invited an audience!!!!!!! foreshadowing to Buck feeling so confident that Eddie will accept his surprise proposal that he invites all their friends to come celebrate with them after 🥹

They just came as the peanut gallery! They weren't there to do any emotional lifting or convincing, they were purely just there to heckle and get Eddie into Bobby's car!!

And now I'm thinking about a proposal in a quiet corner of Bobby and Athena's new backyard during another barbecue where they've all been together so many times before that Eddie doesn't suspect a thing! And they all get to witness his big brown eyes full of happy tears that he wasn't prepared for at all because he was only thinking of Bobby's pulled pork sandwiches!

[andavs]

I like the idea that not only is Eddie such a dork and not smooth at all, the aura he presents still gets him invited to secret poker games with top levels of LAFD peeps

He's cool and collected in pretty much every other situation you could possibly think of—calm under literal gunfire, casually plays poker with and tries to shamelessly scam the LAFD brass—but the second he even thinks about romance he turns into the most awkward, fumbling mess and it's so endearing!

He's my favorite guy.

[andavs]

Thank you for the great analysis, but I fear the problem goes deeper than terrible storytelling. It's about business.

Giving more screen time to cheaper actors (no offense, but that's what younger and newer cast members are) is a great way to take away leverage from more expensive actors during contract negotiations.

A show of this advanced age is getting more and more extensive each year and the only ways to keep monetizing that IP long term is creating hit spinoffs (doesn't seem to be going too well) and cutting costs on one of the most expensive line items, the actors.

Firing Peter gave Disney a little breathing room for Season 9, but with the opposite of the viewership bump that ABC must have hoped for as a result from that creative decision, they will still be looking at ways to bring down those cast costs every season.

Angela is too important for the show to play games with. They probably already fear the day she's done with the show, which gives her more leverage than Disney is likely comfortable with.

So they need to put pressure on the others, especially the ones they assume will never find an acting gig this well-paid again.

Underpaying actors is also a great way to avoid the poor optics that come with firing popular actors, like with Peter. If an actor chooses to leave because they don't think they are compensated fairly, Disney can feign regret, replace them with a cheaper actor (or even better, shrink the cast!) and protect those profit margins.

This is a business, not art.

I get what you're saying, but from what I understand, the mains are paid the same whether they're in an episode or not, so wouldn't it make more sense to actually use them instead of paying them thousands to stand around? Or in Ryan's case last season, take multiple paid weeks off because his character was in Texas? Even if they’re playing a larger game of contract leverage, they're currently throwing money down the drain by not giving them anything to do.

If the actors are the biggest expense, writing off Peter to save money makes sense, but then why promote two more people to regulars? Wouldn't keeping the smaller cast be cheaper? Bring in May and Harry more often as supporting characters to reestablish them to the audience as the “next gen” without paying main cast prices?

I get balancing business with art. I’m a designer in advertising and my whole job is making business look good and balancing my vision with clients and budget. But that’s what writing for TV has always been, so why do they seemingly suck at it now?

It wouldn’t be hard to give Buck a loose but coherent mentorship arc without giving Oliver “potential contract leverage." It could be something as simple as adding a couple scenes of him actually talking about it with someone along the way. A scene with Athena at Harry’s graduation where she thanks him for everything he’s done and tells him that Bobby would be proud. Something to give Buck some kind of opinion or motivation or thought behind how and why he’s been guiding Harry. Like yeah, that’s Bobby’s step-son, but how does Buck feel about it all?

Hell, a lot of this lack of continuity could be helped with a few lines in conversations, like mentioning that Isabel died, or whether or not May actually graduated in December like she said she was going to in the premiere. Like genuinely, what the hell is May doing these days? Is she still in school? Does she have a job? How is she paying rent? What does she do when she isn’t supporting or mediating her mother and brother?

[andavs]

your last post about abigail plus what oliver said about chris being a sassy teenager now and needing buck in different ways… we saw a bit of his sass this episode but i’m curious to see if chris is a bit combative about abigail. maybe he doesnt think she did anything wrong

That would be interesting! And Eddie mentioned Chris wanting more independence too, so maybe he doesn't see the issue in getting a ride with someone else since he went home anyway. Especially if he sees Eddie react with anger more than fear, or Eddie snaps at him for getting in the car with her.

He's at the age where like, you know bad things happen to people and that they could happen to you, but also you knew where you were the entire time and you were literally fine so what's the big deal?

[andavs]

I would be way more inclined to believe the show was intentionally undercutting the Harry storyline with the plan to show he isn’t actually going to become a firefighter if it wasn’t also clear that the show seems to see this as the only way to keep Athena deeply connected to the 118. It also allows them to give Buck this mentor storyline that wouldn’t have worked if it was May. It’s just a lazy shortcut because Harry is more of a blank slate and so they are plugging him in to replace Bobby.

You're right and I'm annoyed about it because I don't like any of it.

Athena becoming closer to the 118 through their shared grief would make perfect sense but I guess on this found family show it only counts if it's a familial connection?

We could've gotten more Athena and Hen wine nights or going out for a drink together, and her having dinner with Hen and Karen. Or having dinner with Maddie and Chimney. Her and Chimney getting closer as he's the captain and they'll be interacting on the job a lot more.

Athena and Buck would be fun to explore outside of the usual dynamic of her tolerating him while generally thinking he's a bit of an idiot. The two of them spending time together and connecting in a new way through their loss of Bobby would be really lovely to see.

Hell, she and Eddie both lost their spouses right in front of them! What kind of conversations could they have?

She already has connections within the 118 that have either been put on the backburner or ignored, and it sucks that right off the bat, they're shoehorning Harry into it instead of working with what they have.

And it's not that I don't want Harry in it at all! He's been a fun addition, I just think that they needed the full season to reintroduce him and get him on this firefighter track. Six episodes, five of which showed him not understanding or caring about the job, was not enough to make this a believable choice for him, or make me want to root for him to succeed at it.